Color Field Painting and Fauvism
By Kathleen Karlsen, MA |
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Fauvism, a short-lived approach to painting focused in France between 1905 and 1907, was characterized by inventive shapes and lines, a pictorial logic based on internal relationships rather than naturalism, and the use of bright, sensationalistic color. The central role of color in painting is the aspect of Fauvism most notably shared with the American Color Field painters. Of the three most prominent American color field artists (Helen Frankenthaler, b.1928; Morris Louis, 1912-1962; and Kenneth Noland, b.1924), Frankenthaler and Louis have the most direct links to Fauvism. Any connection between Noland and Fauvism, if present at all, is much less direct.
This sense of optimism and the celebration of color and pleasure are associated with the aims of Fauvism. Fauvism’s liberation of color from symbolic overtones and its view of color as a way to express vitality and well-being are compelling messages carried forward in much of Frankenthaler’s work as well as in American Color Field painting in general. SEE Kathleen's ABSTRACT ART HERE ©2007 Kathleen Karlsen
RESOURCES: Books Arnason, H.H.. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. New York: Abrams, 1986. Battcock, Gregory, ed. The New Art: A Critical Anthology, rev. ed. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973. Chevreul, M.E. The Principals of Harmony and Contrast of Colors and Their Applications to the Arts (1839). Ed. Faber Birren. New York: Reinhold, 1967. Elderfield, John. Morris Louis. Haarlem, England: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1974. Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991. LeClair, Charles. Color in Contemporary Painting. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1991. Lucie-Smith, Edward. Art Now: From Abstract Expressionism to Surrealism. New York: William Morrow, 1981. Lucie-Smith, Edward. Movements in Art Since 1945, rev. ed. London: Rose, Barbara. American Painting: The Twentieth Century, rev. ed. New York: Rizzoli International, 1986. Rose, Barbara. Frankenthaler. New York: Abrams, 1971. Selz, Peter. Art In Our Times: A Pictorial History 1890-1980. New York: Upright, Diane. Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings. New York: Abrams, 1985. Waldeman, Diane. Kenneth Noland: A Retrospective. New York: Abrams, 1977. Websites Article Use Policy: All content on this web site is protected by international copyright laws for intellectual property and may not be reproduced, used, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission. Contact the author for permission to reprint articles for your own website, newsletter or other publications. Credit must be given to the author, a copyright notification must be included and a link to http://www.kathleenkarlsen.com. |
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In addition to Color Field painting’s reactionary relationship to Cubism, art historians and critics have seen a more conciliatory relationship between Fauvism and the Color Field movement. 
Frankenthaler adopted much of Fauvism’s pictorial logic, including the juxtaposition of discrete areas of irregularly contoured color. This association is clear in Frankenthaler’s enjoyable painting Tutti Frutti (1966). In Tutti Frutti, Frankenthaler has placed large, organically shaped patches of red, orange, blue, yellow, yellow-green, blue-green and teal adjacent to one another in a puzzle-like arrangement. The bright colors play off of one another and interact with one another in an exaggerated, good-humored way. 
